Gwyn, perhaps the most important character in the Lore of Dark Souls. From the Age of Ancients, to the final DLC of Dark Souls 3, the Ringed City, Gwyn’s choices, family, and morals set the course for the entire world, and indeed its fight between ages.
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Gwyn burned for Gwyn. Specifically Gwyn's legacy.
Gwyn, much like Tywin Lanmister, valued his legacy above all else. Even his own life.
WOMP WOMP, ALL HAIL HUMANITY!!!🗣️🗣️🗣️
I have this mental picture of Gwyn frustratingly trying to beat the dragons, failing, then going on the wiki and there reading Seath's comment "Just use lightning damage bro, it's ez"
Gwyn burned for our sins
I am so glad you've not retired you're literally the best Souls lore channel even with all the accounts that popped up after Elden Ring released
Yet another banger by Hawkshaw
1:06 Just wanted to say that Izalith's Lord Soul was Life, not Chaos. The Chaos Flame was an attempt to use the Life Soul to recreate the First Flame.
As you are someone who made a proper timeline, I'm sure you already know this.
Gwyn had a lightning Chakra nature
Gwyn is a pretty interesting character in mine opinion. Kinda feel like most people view him a some sort of pure villian character, but honestly, looking through what lore there is – most of his actions seem pretty justified. He feels like a pretty wise and reasonable ruler that build a grand empire and did all in his power to protect it including sacrificing his own life. Most critics I hear of him is that he broke the natural order of things and that he screwed up humanity's upcoming dark age. But if you look at the situation from his perspective – his actions make perfect sense, and most of the time he was doing exactly what a good leader was supposed to in a given situation.
I generally feel that the whole "breaking the natural order of things" argument is contradicting itself – it is absolutely in the nature of any living thing be that man, animal or god to do all in its power to preserve itself and its kind in the face of upcoming cataclysm. That's kinda one of the main defining characteristic of any life form – to try adapting to the changing environment to survive, it's just that men and gods have more resources at their disposal so unlike animals we actually can try changing the environment itself. So of course he was doing all he could to preserve, or at least prolong his age of fire, what kind of god and ruler would he be if he'd just sit on his ass and watch it all crumble, cause it's "the natural order"? And he did manage to win quite some time, even if in a long run some of the measures he took might have done more harm then good. I don't feel like one can blame him for not being able to look centuries inti the future.
As for the whole dark sigh and screwing humanity with it's dark age – yeah, that probably sucks for humans. But then again this dark age of men doesn't feel all that awesome, wherever we encounter dark in the game, with a very few exceptions – it doesn't really look like a prosperous time. It looks like most humans affected by darkness strongly enough end up pretty twisted both physically (Oolosile) and mentally (Prophaned flame) and the main residents of the dark seem to be hordes of locust men that are pretty eager for the dark to come so that they can begin their "feast". Besides at the very beginning of DS 1 it is mentioned that lords themselves, including Gwyn, crawled towards the lord souls out of the darkness. And I feel like that is also something many overlook cause with that in mind – Gwyn look much less like a scared old man who is just afraid of changes and more like a person who might actually be very well aware of what the return to the dark might bring and thus sees even his most drastic measures, including sacrificing himself, as pretty reasonable compared to what awaits the world once the flame fully dies out.
Is Gwyn the Hulk Hogan Of the Souls series. Lemme tell you something brother! With these 2 24inch sunlight spears we'll cast them dragons out brother. Age of Firemaniacs running wild brothurrrrrrrr
Gwyn is a remarkably complex character when you take all the games as a whole. He committed some obviously evil acts, but the way he inspired true loyalty in people, how he was respected by almost everyone tells me that he was no mere tyrant. Even the other lords followed him when called. The man must have bled Charisma.
I also really respect Gwyndolin, who remained long after all others had given up hope. Even as the flames of his fathers sacrifice faded, he remained true.
Yes more lore I want more give me more
Love the vids hawkshaw ❤
There's a part of Gwyn's story that I'm surprised you didn't touch. How he came to defend the flame from being lit.
When we find Gwyn, his health bar labels him as Lord of Cinder. A title that we wouldn't understand until several games later. We made a lot of assumptions about him. That he was hollow. That he was mindless. The music tells us that this is sad and we all seemed to assume that it was in a "look upon my works ye mighty and despair" way. Gaze upon the finale of the Lord of Sunlight. A mindless thing that lashes out with violence. But things start to take a turn in Dark Souls 2 where we meet the mightiest king of another age. This time it was different. Vendrick was a leader who refused to link the fire. He paces in circles. His sword drags limply behind him. He doesn't even notice the Accursed Undead to has slain his personal guard. Not until that Undead would return with a clutch of Giants' Souls held in their fist. Their combined hatred for Vendrick was enough to for the Undead's blows to finally faze him. Even still, Vendrick only defended himself with the crudest of technique. He wielded his sword with no more finesse than a club. Do you see what I'm getting at here? There was no doubt that Vendrick was hollowed, but Gwyn? Let's not fool ourselves that Gwyn was not fighting with intelligence purely based on how easily enemies were to parry in that game. Gwyn rushed down his enemy. Vendrick barely noticed it. Gwyn swings his blade with purpose and would change his grip on his weapon. Vendrick can barely hold on to his. Gwyn adapts, kicks, grapples and uses the flame as a weapon. Vendrick has what, two-three moves?
Gwyn isn't hollow. Gwyn isn't mindless. Gwyn is acting with his faculties intact. We learn in Dark Souls 3 that Lords of Cinder have their minds. So why does he try to stop you and why is this so sad as the music tells us? Perhaps Gwyn has been trapped here this whole age or perhaps ringing the Bells of Awakening has returned him to burn again. He defies us for the same reason the other Lords of Cinder abandon their thrones. He does not want to burn again. He has lost his faith in the Age of Fire. Gwyn, at the very end of Dark Souls 1, has turned his back on everything that he believes in. Gwyn would let the fire fade instead of snuffing it himself and ultimately Gwyn and Vendrick in their very last of days have the same motivation. To prolong this twilight age until its natural conclusion.
A nitpick, but Dark Souls 3 does tell us that the Furtive Pygmy and the forces of the Abyss did fight on the Lords' behalf. The narrative and full view of Gwyn will always be incomplete, without taking into account the breadth of revelations about him and his actions that we get across all three games.
what? didn't Sith give his daughter to Gwyn? which is why yorshka exists? Also in the japanese text sith is not a duke but a consort kin instead
Hawkshaw DS1 content hits different
Hawkshaw DS1 lore is so deep that Miyazaki watches it to lore-dive
11:12 someones fighting gwyn
I love Hawkshaw
Wild idea here: Gwyndolin is Priscilla's child (I will explain if anyone i interested)
Gwynevere has two big reasons why men pay attention when she speaks. 🤣🤣🤣
Prolong the age of fire!
IS THAT TITAN SOULS MUSIC!?
My headcanon is that at the end, Gwyn gave up on the age of fire. In the final boss fight, he appears and fights like any of the other Hollows faced through the series. A hollow is someone who has given up all hope. Gwyn believed in the age of fire, so him losing all hope means that he lost belief in the age of fire. He fights us to stop us from linking the first flame, perhaps he knows that neither dark nor light will win in the end, but only Ash.
Under 1 hour is not a movie
Plin plin plon
Ahh it just goes plin plin plon
😭
Pretty sure this all wildly misses the mark and that he's intended as a straightforwardly "heroic" character – but the point of Dark Souls is that heroism is basically futile and nothing lasts forever.
The whole thing about burning humanity is, I think, also completely off – and the bit about fighting Izalith for humanity, too. The city was overrun by demons because of essentially a nuclear accident, and the demons are indeed straight-forwardly bad (or chaotic).
The fire started to fade, and the fading light resulted in undeath and ultimately hollowing: the visual metaphor is that a bright, powerful light casts sharp shadow (alive or dead), whereas a dim one creates soft, blurred shadows (undeath, gradual hollowing).
The state of affairs with the Age of Fire is simply meant to be a good and positive thing, but fundamentally at odds with the nature of the world, and doomed to failure. A beautiful lie, as Aldia put it.
Narratively I think the bits about humanity being sealed with fire (note: sealed not burnt) were mainly just to imply that maybe something at least somewhat not awful could be possible in the age of Dark – which is also what Aldia is on about at the end of DS2 ("what could possibly await us?").
Tldr:
Gywn is a narrative device standing in for the inevitability of failing grandeur and nobility who made the ultimate sacrifice. You fight him as a hollow to highlight precisely that even making the ultimate sacrifice doesn't actually fix everything, and that everything everything everything ends.
TLDR 2: it's a fairytale and not a political thriller: the evil queen in sleeping beauty was just an evil queen; you can write a version where she's a nuanced character with political dimensions, but that's not the original story's intent, and in reality it makes for a dumb movie (and a dumb sequel).
good video
Fantastic as always mate
So the fire could be fueled by humanity and souls? Or just lord souls?
Or are the lords considered humans by the fire?
He is Odin, in many ways and zues
What daughter was given to Seath?